5 ms·

"Remember "Diskdoctor"? It earned its PhD and is now ready to reliably rescue data from your floppies or hard disks." Remember the cool old "AGA - time to upgr

"Remember "Diskdoctor"? It earned its PhD and is now ready to reliably rescue data from your floppies or hard disks." Remember the cool old "AGA - time to upgrade - AGA" slogan in some of the demos? Now it's ZFS - time to upgrade - ZFS ...it's the 21st century, and AmigaOS doesn't even have software RAID, let alone ZFS yet. We still have to check filesystems for metadata corruption, and checking them for data corruption is still science fiction. And nobody bats an eyelash, like it's the most normal thing in the world. Meanwhile, the capacitors are leaking like crazy, modern PC-bucket power supplies don't deliver steady 5V, the clock crystal loses or gains up to 5 seconds per day, even the newest accelerator hardware doesn't support ECC memory... what could possibly go wrong with one's data?

snvzz 8y ago
You could use OFS (Original File System, before FFS) which has checksums in every block! Note blocks are <512byte because of that (ouch) and everything else about OFS sucks.
- Annatar 8y ago
  I could, but then I have to ditch all the FFS features. I mean the whole thing that they're still mucking around with filesystem checks is nonsense. That was the thing of the past even way back in 2001 on SGI IRIX 6.5 with XFS, and we're still doing this. Can't even do a software RAID 1+0.
- obarthel 8y ago
  Smaller than 512 bytes? I beg to differ. The file system data structure layout requires a minimum of 512 bytes per block. The Amiga OFS/FFS, etc. file system data structures scale with the block size (block sizes of 512, 1024, .., 65536 bytes are possible). At 256 bytes per block, for example, the directory hash table size would shrink so much that you'd have so many hash collisions that it would be morbidly funny... Anyway, the data blocks in OFS have to account for the checksum and some metadata which aids in recovery. So you are correct that the payload (488 bytes for a 512 byte block) is smaller than the raw block size.
  - snvzz 8y ago
    Payload vs block size. Noted.
  - snvzz 8y ago
    On a separate note, as I understand there's e.g. library updates, are you releasing a NDK and/or documentation for 3.1.4 development?
    - obarthel 8y ago
      The focus of AmigaOS 3.1.4 development work was on fixing bugs, integrating code which so far had been separate (e.g. the mass storage drivers last updated in AmigaOS 3.9) and generally making it easier for Amiga hardware developers to make use of the operating system (e.g. adapt the operating system rather than force the developers to twist their designs). The AmigaOS 3.9 NDK ("native development kit") is still relevant for the AmigaOS 3.1.4 update. The 3.1.4 update added new API functionality, but these changes are few and could (= will) be covered separately.
      - snvzz 8y ago
        I'm looking forward to that. Never been too fond of 3.9 as a target :).
zmix 8y ago
It's the 21st century, so maybe you should upgrade from 1992 to 2018! That's 26 years! You really want a heavy weight like ZFS (which is a total memory hog, btw., I use it in my server) on Amiga hardware from 1992? You should be happy, that there is such an update to AmigaOS at all ! I understand the enthusiasm. I used an A4000/Cyberstorm060/CyberGfx64 exclusively till 2001. I did not care, that each reboot would take 6 minutes (with starting all the background stuff) and that my system was runtime memory patched into oblivion, and no memory protection in the system. That it crashed 10 times a day (multiply this with boot times, HO HO!). But one day a day has come and one needs to realize: Reality!
- Annatar 8y ago
  "It's the 21st century, so maybe you should upgrade from 1992 to 2018! That's 26 years!" I did upgrade: 128 MB FAST RAM, 64-bit MC68080 @ ~234 MHz with AMMX SIMD instructions, 16 GB industry grade CF and 8 GB microSDHC. OS 3.9 @ 1300 x 768 x 32-bit color HDMI. "You really want a heavy weight like ZFS (which is a total memory hog, btw., I use it in my server) on Amiga hardware from 1992?" Yes, I do, because as a Solaris engineer, I understand that ZFS will release memory due to memory pressure from applications, and can in fact run in memory constrained systems. Should be able to run on an Amiga with a Vampire accelerator and 129 MB of RAM. ZIL is auto tuned. Just don't use features like de-duplication and it'll be fine. (My reboots take about three seconds, with or without the Vampire accelerator, and that's even with OS 3.9.)
  - zmix 8y ago
    I was referring to your tone, which makes it sound, as it would be the most normal thing in the IT world, to have modern technologies running on a system, that died (most would say) 20+ years ago and what's left, is thanks to some extremely talented Necromantic Wizards ;-) Anyways, I know that feeling: http://cd.textfiles.com/amigama/amigama199803/WWW/ctools/www.ctools.pp.se/AMIGA/Survivor.gif http://cd.textfiles.com/amigama/amigama199803/WWW/ctools/www...
    - Annatar 8y ago

snvzz 8y ago

You could use OFS (Original File System, before FFS) which has checksums in every block! Note blocks are <512byte because of that (ouch) and everything else about OFS sucks.

Annatar 8y ago
I could, but then I have to ditch all the FFS features. I mean the whole thing that they're still mucking around with filesystem checks is nonsense. That was the thing of the past even way back in 2001 on SGI IRIX 6.5 with XFS, and we're still doing this. Can't even do a software RAID 1+0.
obarthel 8y ago
Smaller than 512 bytes? I beg to differ. The file system data structure layout requires a minimum of 512 bytes per block. The Amiga OFS/FFS, etc. file system data structures scale with the block size (block sizes of 512, 1024, .., 65536 bytes are possible). At 256 bytes per block, for example, the directory hash table size would shrink so much that you'd have so many hash collisions that it would be morbidly funny... Anyway, the data blocks in OFS have to account for the checksum and some metadata which aids in recovery. So you are correct that the payload (488 bytes for a 512 byte block) is smaller than the raw block size.
- snvzz 8y ago
  Payload vs block size. Noted.
- snvzz 8y ago
  On a separate note, as I understand there's e.g. library updates, are you releasing a NDK and/or documentation for 3.1.4 development?
  - obarthel 8y ago
    The focus of AmigaOS 3.1.4 development work was on fixing bugs, integrating code which so far had been separate (e.g. the mass storage drivers last updated in AmigaOS 3.9) and generally making it easier for Amiga hardware developers to make use of the operating system (e.g. adapt the operating system rather than force the developers to twist their designs). The AmigaOS 3.9 NDK ("native development kit") is still relevant for the AmigaOS 3.1.4 update. The 3.1.4 update added new API functionality, but these changes are few and could (= will) be covered separately.
    - snvzz 8y ago
      I'm looking forward to that. Never been too fond of 3.9 as a target :).

zmix 8y ago

It's the 21st century, so maybe you should upgrade from 1992 to 2018! That's 26 years! You really want a heavy weight like ZFS (which is a total memory hog, btw., I use it in my server) on Amiga hardware from 1992? You should be happy, that there is such an update to AmigaOS at all ! I understand the enthusiasm. I used an A4000/Cyberstorm060/CyberGfx64 exclusively till 2001. I did not care, that each reboot would take 6 minutes (with starting all the background stuff) and that my system was runtime memory patched into oblivion, and no memory protection in the system. That it crashed 10 times a day (multiply this with boot times, HO HO!). But one day a day has come and one needs to realize: Reality!

Annatar 8y ago
"It's the 21st century, so maybe you should upgrade from 1992 to 2018! That's 26 years!" I did upgrade: 128 MB FAST RAM, 64-bit MC68080 @ ~234 MHz with AMMX SIMD instructions, 16 GB industry grade CF and 8 GB microSDHC. OS 3.9 @ 1300 x 768 x 32-bit color HDMI. "You really want a heavy weight like ZFS (which is a total memory hog, btw., I use it in my server) on Amiga hardware from 1992?" Yes, I do, because as a Solaris engineer, I understand that ZFS will release memory due to memory pressure from applications, and can in fact run in memory constrained systems. Should be able to run on an Amiga with a Vampire accelerator and 129 MB of RAM. ZIL is auto tuned. Just don't use features like de-duplication and it'll be fine. (My reboots take about three seconds, with or without the Vampire accelerator, and that's even with OS 3.9.)
- zmix 8y ago
  I was referring to your tone, which makes it sound, as it would be the most normal thing in the IT world, to have modern technologies running on a system, that died (most would say) 20+ years ago and what's left, is thanks to some extremely talented Necromantic Wizards ;-) Anyways, I know that feeling: http://cd.textfiles.com/amigama/amigama199803/WWW/ctools/www.ctools.pp.se/AMIGA/Survivor.gif http://cd.textfiles.com/amigama/amigama199803/WWW/ctools/www...
  - Annatar 8y ago